Computer Tips - How does windows check if I have a good internet connection?

Date: 2011jun25
OS: Windows

Q.  How does windows check if I have a good internet connection?

A.  Its NCSI (Network Connectivity Status Indicator) checks that:

dns.msftncsi.com resolves to 131.107.255.255 using DNS

http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt contains exactly: Microsoft NCSI
with no newlines or other non-printing characters.

More info
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766017%28WS.10%29.aspx

Apple devices use
http://captive.apple.com
Which returns "Success" in some HTML.

Another old faithful is
http://example.com